A Complete Guide To Your Fantasy Baseball Sleepers

In fantasy parlance, these are your sleepers—typically lesser-known entities that you hope will explode onto the scene, with five tools, plate discipline, and a handsome smile. These young studs—your Stephen Strasburgs, Jason Heywards, and Kyle Blankses—are an attractive crew, and collectively we foam at the mouth for them, conflating their youthful promise with our own unrealistic expectations. But stop it, I say! These are not your sleepers.

This year there is a different breed of sleeper: the old reliable ("old" being a relative term). You see, in everyone’s rush to scoop up the next [insert star player’s name here], we are prematurely drawing chalk outlines around the careers of too many of those star players, either because of down years—due to age, injury, or a combination of the two—or the mere anticipation of a down year. Not that all of them will pan out, of course. But there are so many high-upside, formerly elite guys slipping down the draft board, that it would be insane not to take a chance on one or a few of them.

In any case, know this: fantasy folk are fickle, and thou shalt not sleep on these ten players...

Manny Ramirez—Manny served a 50-game drug suspension in the middle of last season and still finished the year with 19 homers, 63 RBIs, and an OPS higher than Ryan Braun’s—an almost identical output to the 100 games he played in Boston before being traded in ’08, interestingly. So why do people think he’s washed up? Because they’re boobs! If he’s available in the seventh round or later, act fast, and then give yourself a well-deserved high-five.

Cole Hamels—To call Hamels old would be misleading; he won’t turn 27 until Christmas. Still, after a sporadic 2009 campaign, the guy seems like damaged goods. But don’t be fooled, dude can pitch. His career ERA is 3.67 and his career WHIP is 1.18. Plus, with a new pitch—the cutter—added to his arsenal and one of game’s greatest mentors in Roy Halladay as a teammate, he’s poised to truly dominate.

Carlos Beltran—Beltran won’t be in the lineup until May at the earliest, after having excruciatingly late—for Mets fans, at least—off-season knee surgery. But when he does get back on the field, he should be the same consistent bat he’s always been, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t draft the guy, stash him on your bench, and thank the baseball lords that you weren’t made a Mets fan.

John Lackey—Lackey heads from Anaheim, where he was staff ace, to Boston, where he will plug the middle of a formidable rotation. Some are speculating that his numbers will suffer in the hitter-heavy AL East, and let them think that. Now that the Red Sox offense has his back, there will be plenty of wins in his arm this year. And they’re all yours.

Vladimir Guerrero—Watch him run the bases, and you’ll notice he’s about as graceful as a three-legged Labrador, which is exactly why Vlad will benefit from serving as a full-time DH. (Not to mention that he’ll be hacking at a hitter-friendly home ballpark.) My theory: being a shell of your former self may not be so bad when that former self is Vladimir Guerrero.

Chad Billingsley—Like Hamels, Billingsley is young (only 25) and, as recently as one year ago, was considered a top-tier talent. What’s changed? After reeling off nine wins, striking out 119, and just generally being nasty for the first half of 2009, Billingsley was derailed by leg injuries that also likely resulted in disruptive mechanical quirks. If you give up on the kid, be warned: he’s still an ace in the making.

Ben Sheets—Two years ago, the injury-prone Sheets dominated the National League as a member of the Brewers. Then he spent all of 2009 rehabbing from elbow surgery. And now reports out of Spring Training say his fastball is popping again. Heck, if the A’s, a.k.a. Team Moneyball, anted up $10 million for one season with Sheets, I’ll cast my lot with the guy, too.

Alfonso Soriano—Soriano suffered through an injury-plagued ’09 season in which he swatted twenty homers and stole ten bags—not bad for a "down" year—and now everyone is saying he’s done. This year, he’s been dropped to sixth in the batting order. Even if the speed is gone, though, he’s still got those powerful, lightning-quick wrists and he’s out to prove there’s something left in the tank besides tobacco stains and sunflower seeds.

Carlos Zambrano—With eight full major league seasons under his belt, Zambrano seems like he’s been around forever. But at 28, he is still in his physical prime. He won’t do you any favors in the walk department—control freak he is not—but, aside from his first brief stint in the bigs, Z has never finished with an ERA over 4.00. Not bad for a guy basically going undrafted.

David Ortiz—Heading into June of last year, Ortiz had hit all of one homerun and Red Sox Nation naysayers were getting ready to draw two fat asterisks next to the Boston championships from earlier in the decade. Then Big Papi received a prescription for eye drops, got his vision back, and finished the season with 28 dingers and 99 RBIs. Umm...well...uh...MANNY STILL DID STEROIDS!